Wanderlust
by luvmeh8meucan'tchangeme
Summary: The girls go on a road trip to save their relationship. / Life can be hectic. Ashley sucks at communication. Spencer is overwhelmed and distracted. Don't even mention the F word. F-u-t-u-r-e. / Full of adventure, fluff, random quotes and a Spashley-Ever-After. / Follows the TV storyline. Set around a year after the finale episode of SoN.


Authors Note: This is kinda my come back at writing. After two year hiatus while I suffered from severe writers-block I just had to write something, _anything_. Hopefully now I can get back to finishing 'Sunshine' and 'Mine'. Anyway this fic is almost complete. I'm just doing some retouches to the rough draft. I don't exactly know when I'll post next. I completely finished before I post chapter 2. This story won't be very long maybe 10 chapters at most but we'll see.

IMPORTANT: This story is set a year after the South of Nowhere finale episode. I follow the shows story line. There may be a few things that are added, but nothing majorly plot changing. Sorry if its a little slow in the beginning.

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**Preface**

'_Travel brings power and love back into your life.' ―Rumi_

I haven't a clue who _Rumi_ is and in all honesty I don't care. I read the quote on a bumper sticker while driving up Pacific Coast Highway at 7:42 am; day one of our road trip. It was stuck to the rusty fender of an old Volkswagen ―and my father always said 'you can trust a German car'.

For whatever reason those words stuck in my head. And at the time, I had no idea how true they were.

_Day one_, wow. In some ways that felt like yesterday, and in others it felt like a millennium ago.

Hard to believe only a week had passed since we bid our family and friends goodbye; promising to call at least once a day. I only recall one occasion in which Spencer phoned her mom, and that was about two hours after we left to tell Paula the toaster was still plugged in.

We were just too busy for the real world.

The plan was to travel up the California coast towards Redding then drive back inland. Just me, Spencer and my overpacked 92' Jeep Cherokee. The adventure of a lifetime; and no parents, siblings, or friends to get in the way. Spencer said it was going to change our lives.

She was right.

I looked towards the passenger seat where the cutest girl I'd ever seen slept peacefully next to me. She was practically snuggled into the door jam. Head resting on the window and her legs curled up, knee to chest. It would forever amaze me how the sight of her could still set off butterflies in my stomach. Blonde hair tousled around her sweet face while little noises escaped slightly parted lips. It took my breath away.

More than anything I wanted to take the next random highway exit and extend the journey we'd just been on. Another day of waking up in a new place, not knowing what we were going to do and who we where going to meet. No college deadlines or nagging music producers. It would be so easy to just merge onto the next off-ramp and spend another day exploring an unfamiliar site. Just Spencer and I falling more in love every second of our escapade from reality. But of course reality beckoned, so I stayed on the road leading home. That didn't stop my mind from wondering.

It was a Saturday that we left for our ―according to Paula Carlin― impetuous road trip. Though Paula wasn't very keen on letting her baby girl go there was nothing she could do. Spencer and I where both legal adults, and she'd been living with me at my LA loft for the past year. It didn't help when we told Paula I'd planned most of the trip.

I didn't take offense to the lackluster trust. If the way she fretted over me was any indication of the way she felt, Paula loved me. In my opinion, the two scarves and matching coat set she'd tossed into my duffle where rather unnecessary during a spring road trip.

For Spencer's sake I let her mother, _mother_ me. I think it made her happy to see us interact without any snide comments or paintball guns. Either way, my feuds with Paula Carlin were long over. Sure we still butt heads from time-to-time, but it wouldn't be _us_ if we didn't.

So in the spirit of it all she insulted my Cherokee and condemned it to a roadside death in the next hundred miles. That one was a little harder to let go.

Our friends were supportive, after they'd established we were crazy. I guess not many people left for spur-of-the-moment road trips _after_ spring break. We'd spent that vacation surrounded by the people in our lives. Admittedly it was a nice time. Days at the beach, dinners at the Carlin house, and late nights with friends. But on one hand, I could count the times Spencer and I had spent alone.

Then last week by some miraculous chance, both our schedules cleared up. It was like the universe agreed we were in dire need of quality time. The universe was right.

As individuals we were doing amazingly well. As a couple, we were spiraling down a long disastrous drain. Life had been nothing but crazy ever since Spencer's high school graduation.

After figuring out she wasn't going to Worthington for college things should have been easier. Spencer would attend UCLA as a film student and move into the loft with me while I worked on my music and lived off the inheritance money.

That was the plan, so thats what we did. No one told us this was gonna be the hard part.

I loved working on my music, I'm good at it. Even dealings with my previous archenemy Madison were going well. On a tentative level we consider each other friends on the good days.

Mine and Kyla's relationship was progressing more and more. According to her we were becoming increasingly sisterly one brawl at a time. She'd given up the parties and and taken up a love for relief work. It seemed every other month Kyla was in a third world country while simultaneously headlining articles like 'Rockstars Daughter With A Heart of Gold'.

Aiden Dennison was my rock. My very platonic, girl-obsessed rock. Other then his recent streak of serial dating, Aiden was great. On those days when Spencer was busy with her family, college deadlines, and classmates it was nice to have someone around who knew me. Someone who didn't mind spending the evening playing video games on my couch while we made fun of reality shows and ate Oreo's for dinner. He was like my brother.

As for Spencer, she thrived in college. Her professor _―_according to her_―_ was an Indie film directing legend with a passion for teaching. There would be days she'd walk in the door bubbling with excitement. Eyes gleaming she'd tell me everything she learned, even if I didn't understand a thing. Spencer even liked her peers. Exact words: 'Unlike high school, they're all passionate. Here in class because they want to be'.

She made so many new friends because of UCLA. It had even brought her closer to a few she'd already kinda known. Jonica and Lily _―_two documentary enthusiast she'd met while in high school_―_ were both teaching assistants. Spencer really liked them.

On the surface everything was fine. But things were far from the paradise we had expected them to be. Calling us naive? I would.

Very simply, Spencer and I were drifting. We both saw it happening but refused to acknowledge it. We didn't want to believe it. I kept telling myself things would be worked out on their own time. _As if they ever had before._

Recently Spencer was busy with everything but me. Moving out of her parents house, going to UCLA and all the new friends she'd met were all so distracting and overwhelming. It was taking up a lot of energy. Spencer didn't realize how distant I was starting to feel from her. However, I'll admit it wasn't just Spencer's fault. I never mentioned any of this to her. I acted like it didn't bother me; hoping it wouldn't if I didn't bring it up. That theory dropped like a lead balloon. Communication was never my strong point.

I think we were both scared of lose each other. But we handled it all wrong. So like the plague we avoided the touchy subjects. One of those including the future. We were a pair of wimps. If that subject, our dreams or our hopes ever came up we'd run the other way. Apparently nothing was learned from our past.

With life so full of other obligations it became all too easy to turn a blind eye to the giant elephant in the room. We didn't fully know what our problems were, forget coming even close to dealing with them, much less have the time for it all.

We needed this road trip, _this time to ourselves_. A break from all the crazy and a short period to just take a breath and figure things out.

I think Spencer's father _―_Arthur_―_ knew that; even when we didn't. He was a big supporter of this excursion. Helped me plan stops and pack snacks. When I started to rethink going and Spencer decided she couldn't miss a week of class Mr. C actually left us stranded at a sporting goods store till we bought everything on the list he gave us. I'll admit the excitement kicked in at that point and I thought great, after a week of care free open roads we'd be back to _normal_ and everything would be peaches-and-cream. I was partially right.

On this trip we learned a lot about each other and ourselves. Mostly we learned how to fall in love again. Now that its over I've been asking Spencer what her favorite part was. She gives me a different answer each time.

One minute it was our stop at a beach covered in glass, then it was the park with my guitar, or the diner we met our new friends at. Earlier it was between the party under the bridge and the hike at dawn. My favorite was camping under the canopy of trees, or maybe it was the bar with the stuffed moose. I guess we're both a little indecisive still. That wasn't even all of it and we loved every bit.

This trip saved our relationship. I wouldn't trade one fight we had, kiss we shared, or night we talked for anything. It brought us to where we are today. And it was a journey that neither of us would ever forget.

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Thanks for reading. I haven't posted anything in a while and I'm actually pretty nervous. So tell me what you think. Like it? Hate it? Love it? Burn it?


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